Work has been extravagantly furnished with opportunities to excel. That’s a positive spin on “too much to do and no way in hell will it all get done.” I have been failing, daily, to manage the production workload against the quote workload against the support workload against the helping-coworkers workload against taking a deep and shuddering breath.

And, of course, I’ve been house-hunting at the same time, and (this week) signing leases and moving at the same time, which precludes working late to catch up on some of the shortfall. The result is a world of people who want things from me, who aren’t getting what they want, aren’t getting what they get in a timely fashion, and who aren’t getting a chance to believe that things will improve any time soon. This isn’t my fault; we’ve had half our workforce shipped to other departments, and management isn’t fixing it anytime soon. It is, however, my responsibility.

Last Friday that thought gave me pause. I don’t have the power to change the situation, so I cannot be saddled with the responsibility, only the blame. I didn’t provoke the situation, so I cannot be saddled with the responsibility, only the blame. Blame is not something that one has to accept, so I chose not to. I wrote out my workload, and the algorithm that I use to determine what to do next, and showed concisely that, if I continued, the backlog and number of irritated customers would increase. I ended with a statement that I needed managerial guidance on how to change my algorithm to keep within the company’s best interest.

I got back a reply that provided that guidance, give or take. It’s a mistake. But. It isn’t my mistake. It’s how my leader is directing me. I shoved off several hours of work a day to poor souls who are already foundering, and did so with a clear conscience; it isn’t in my ability to manage the managers from below, even for the benefit of the Many.

It’s been a better week. I no longer wake in the wee hours dreading thinking about the next day.

I’m still not writing, I’m still not doing many things I’d like to do. I believe that, while moving and working full time, those are reasonable lacks, but they were lacking before we were moving. I think, I think, I think, that I have been living my entire life the way I had been working up until last week; I have my own load of work to do, and then see that things aren’t being done, and that people working next to me in my life have needs that they can’t meet, and I add all of that to what is rightfully my own load.

Effectively carrying other people’s load, as well.

And falling further behind, day by day, on my own life. Further behind on writing. On getting enough sleep. On being happy.

*looks impressed* This analogy thing, it’s pretty useful stuff.

I am, of course, my own Manager in my life, so I need to write me a nice email asking for guidance in prioritizing my life. I think it will need to include “sometimes do things even when those around you don’t want to, or are tired, or have conflicting needs.” Historically, I’m not good at that, but I have just had a demonstration that the results are good, and that I will be happier afterwards.

And we’ll see.

For a change, this is short.

Like this:  without ever having it spelled out in so many words, I was brought up to believe that doing good things was a Good Thing.  I extrapolated from this in the simplistic sophistication that children bring to philosophy; if I do good things, I’m good.  If I do bad things, I’m bad.  If I fail to do good things, which am I?  At best neutral, at worst bad, probably not good, because we’ve defined good as “having done good things.”

Y’okay.  Pretty simplistic, and failing to take other things into account, like ability, cost, circumstance, responsibility, responsibility to be happy and fulfilled…simple.  For a kid, it worked.  If it works, I don’t fix it.  And, being me, I took things to their extremes.  After all, if it is good to do Good Things, it will be better to do more Good Things…and if I don’t do Good Things, I won’t be a good person.

Hellooooo John Calvin.  I had, by accident, fallen into the premise of Virtue by Works, with the implied corollary that if I fail to provide Works, I fail to have Virtue.  No Salvation, to Worth, no Love.  No worth or love, either.  Implied in this is the concept of “total depravity”, which isn’t nearly the fun the name indicates.  Basically, it is the notion that we are inherently sinful and without value unless we do Works.

1. I am a valuable person only if I am useful to others
2. I am only loveable if I provide value to others
3. I have no inherent worth, only derived worth
4. I am inherently corrupt (well, that’s true, but I work at it, too) and worthless and unloveable

Wow.  I’m pretty sure that most of that is either wrong or is based on false assumptions.  #1 is false; I can have value to me without being useful to anyone else.  I can have value because they like me and feel better when I’m around.  #2 presumes that my being loved is in my control.  It isn’t.  People love who they love.  Given time and diligent effort I might convince someone to stop loving me, but it would be just that; convincing.  And, if they don’t love me, I can’t get them to do so by Works.  #3, I suppose, is just a restatement of #1.

#4 is what I say to myself when I am overburdened and depressed thereby.  I’m not accomplishing all that is set before me, therefore I am useless.

Which means that, if I am burdened to the point of failure at work, I determine that, by my failure, I am useless.

If I am fraught and tired and depressed because I am stupid and think I’m useless because of work, and I don’t write, I am further useless.  Not because I didn’t do something I enjoy doing, but because I didn’t Accomplish Things.

I am determining my happiness by my value to other people. No wonder I frequently fall short on my own best interests; they aren’t even on the list, except that they matter to those who love me.

Cotton Mather, you were a horse’s ass.  I can tell by your works.

The artist is, frenzied, pacing back and forth.  Piles of torn hair litter the floor, and there is a look to his eye that would send sane men skittering back.  A bit of white froth is at his lip.

I seem to be stressed.

There’s reason, of course — everyone has reason for what they do, however unreasonable it might be.  Mine are, generally, internally coherent.  That’s not happenstance.  I spend a major portion of my energy keeping an analytical eye on myself, checking things over and making certain I’ve not skipped my tracks.

I spend, in fact, what the philosophers call a buttload of time navel-gazing.

And there, the rub.

Backing up a bit:  I seem to be stressed.  There are many changes in my life just now.  We are about to move, about to take on roommates, about to make add some changes to how we treat money, budgetary changes, income changes.  There have been changes thrust upon us; both our workplaces have experienced upheaval.
Both of us are carrying greater load at work than we can manage, and more is coming.

That’s a lot of change.  Change — good or bad — produces stress.

Stress produces reaction.  Reaction, in me, produces spot-checks on my behaviors and thoughts.  The spot-checks produce careful analysis, which, in the end, will produce a shift in paradigm and my behaviors.

Again, I do this pretty much all the time.  I’m wrought, I look myself over, consider if my internal landscape needs modifying, and then do so.  A habit, it seems to me, that will continue to refine my decisions and behaviors, leading eventually to Buddha.

Part of the process, for me, is to challenge the base assumptions for fault.  This morning I was raking through the previous day, looking for ways to improve things.  I noted that I was doing so, and noted that, since there have been stressors, I was doing this rather more than usual, there being more opportunity and perceived need.

But I was in self-analysis and challenge-the-base-premise mode, so I pursued the thought.

Change begets stress, stress begets behaviors and emotions, which beget spot-checking which begets personal change –

–which begets stress, stress begets –

–

– oh, hell.  The more that happens, the more I am unbalanced, the more I think, the more happens.  I am perpetual energy.

My CBT is a mental disorder.

Woodwork is moving in tiny bursts, as I come to repeated dead stops to create jigs to perform the next task.  Writing is moving in tiny bursts, as I drag myself to the keyboard once a fortnight for a half hour, 2/3 of which I permit to be taken by minor emergencies.  Work is a full day ahead of deadlines than it was last week.

I am utterly failing to answer emails.  I am losing contact with most of the world as I try to juggle events.

This balance and perspective thing is difficult.

But.  Progress.  However hard to detect.